


i fell in love with her in stages (my whole life)

by marcaskane (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 12:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25969717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/marcaskane
Summary: When he saw the “(No Subject)” email, and processed the date, he nearly didn’t open it. He nearly swiped it away and deleted it because he didn’t need to see that shit, whatever it was.
Relationships: Avery/Schneider (One Day at a Time), Penelope Alvarez/Schneider
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	i fell in love with her in stages (my whole life)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really go here but ever since I heard "Me & You Together Song" from The 1975's new album, I haven't been able to stop thinking of it as an Alvareider song, and finally this happened.

Schneider was three months sober when he found the email in his drafts.

Three months sober, which meant two months back together with Avery. Two… good fucking months. Two months of perfect date nights and lazy weekends and _Game of Thrones_ marathons during which they could recite an increasing number of lines verbatim.

It had been long enough that Alex and Elena no longer eyed him hesitantly whenever they learned he’d had a bad day. But then there was Pen, who… well. Sometimes, when they crossed paths in the halls, or when he visited and found her alone, she looked him in the eyes a second too long and he knew that she was still smarting.

Not that she hadn’t forgiven him. But she worried, and in the briefest of moments, she allowed him to see that she would never stop worrying.

He couldn’t blame her.

And that was why it hurt—three months sober, Schneider spotting an email he’d written while on his bender.

When he saw the “(No Subject)” email, and processed the date, he nearly didn’t open it. He nearly swiped it away and deleted it because he didn’t need to see that shit, whatever it was.

But he saw the first sloppy sentence in the text preview, and his morbid curiosity got the better of him.

_I think I need yu Pen,,  
_ _I’ve needd you for a while but I th ink I’m goin to die with out you now  
_ _No I shoulnt say that I shouldnt put that on you Thas not what I mean. not die like Ill do something bads I just mean die like part off me thinks i’ll ex[plode frm not having yiu.  
_ _May be you coulda made iyt bettter ?  
_ _fu uck no I shoul’dnt say that ether,,, < I dunno if you would ve made it bettter but i fee  
_ _l like things wouldv been lots difrent if I told you I neede d you wantd you when i new.  
_ _uou might have wanted me themn,._  
_You’re not gonna want me npw. i fucked up bad nd youre neber gonna frgive me.  
_ _I shouldn ’t even se n_

Schneider’s stomach twisted, and he thought, for a brief moment, that he might vomit.

“Everything alright?”

Avery’s voice shook him as she entered his bedroom, in the middle of running her hair through a towel post-shower. “Huh?” he asked, dazed.

“You’ve got your nervous-and-confused face on. Different from your nervous-and-sad or nervous-and-angry faces, thankfully, but still a little worrying.” She spoke matter-of-factly, puttering around to find the right outfit, but her tone was affectionate.

This was the conversation of a couple that knew each other.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Alright.” Avery pecked Schneider on the lips and started musing aloud about their weekend plans.

\--

Schneider would never let something like an unsent email disrupt his life, but he had to concede that he was paying it a bit too much mind.

Particularly when lying awake at 3 in the morning, stewing over the fact that, even drunk out of his mind, he’d _known_ that picking up a drink again would ensure that Pen could never look at him the same way. Why should she? Even disregarding the way he’d sabotaged his relationship with the kids… she’d been through it with Victor. She knew better by now.

And even drowning in alcohol, Schneider had known it and ached over it.

\--

He was in love with Avery. He was in love with Penelope Alvarez, too.

People might feel a need to phrase it with a _but_. As in, he was in love with Avery _but_.

There was no but. Avery was his future and he wanted that.

He also ached over the ball of feelings for Pen, which had grown so gradually, so quietly, that he’d barely even noticed. There she was, half best friend and half something more who maybe, if so many things had been _so_ different…

No. She was not a _but_.

Schneider reread that email until he knew each word, each spelling mistake, by heart.

\--

One night, he deleted it.

(He balked fifteen minutes later and archived it instead.)

\--

The hurt faded from Penelope’s eyes, and it was not everything that Schneider could have asked for, but it was the best he was going to get, and so it was perfect.

He sat with her over a pint of ice cream one night while Elena, Alex, and Lydia were out, and with his spoon on his tongue, he said, “Remember when we talked about Step 8?”

Penelope’s brow creased, her nose crinkled, and she hesitated, her own spoon halfway to her mouth. “That’s the amends for your harm one, yeah?”

Schneider nodded.

“I remember.”

When she still hadn’t moved, Schneider reached out and lowered her arm to hover over the pint, so that at least her ice cream wouldn’t melt on to the table. “It means a lot, that you’ve let me back in like this.”

“Well, you know.”

Things like that. That was where he still felt her aching.

_Would we have stood a chance?_ Schneider didn’t ask.

“I do know,” he said instead.


End file.
